The only problem is that beyond the Emerts and their friends, no one actually saw the squirrel or was able to study it. The family did hang onto some of the fur that was left behind in the cage, along with some tail trimmings — and they gave those samples to Cole when he was called to the scene.

Cole said the hairs could be passed along to a lab for an analysis, but the game commission itself won't be pursuing the case any further. As purple as it is, the squirrel doesn't appear to pose a hazard or be suffering from disease.

"The squirrel looks healthy in the picture there, except that he doesn't want to be in that cage," he said.

The Pennsylvania purple squirrel wasn't happy about being kept in a cage.Percy Emert and family

Cole also doesn't think the Emerts dyed the critter, which would be illegal. But he wouldn't rule out the possibility that someone else may have colored the squirrel previously to keep track of it. In fact, there are several possible explanations for the purpleness.

One is that the squirrel picked up a purple stain in the course of its perambulations. In 2008, a purple squirrel was sighted near a school in England, and experts suggested that the animal got into some discarded containers of printer ink toner. AccuWeather meteorologist Henry Margusity joked that the Pennsylvania squirrel "could have been looking for somewhere warm and fallen into a Port-a-Potty or something similar."

Unless the purple squirrel makes a reappearance and gets a scientific going-over, the case will remain up for debate, much like the fabled Minnesota sighting of 1997. In the meantime, Harold Cole and Percy Emert are continuing to field phone calls and press inquiries about the mystery — so much so that Emert's wife, Connie, is sorry that the poor critter was caught in the first place.